The Development Of Prosocial Lying Affected By Sadness Empathy In Adolescents And Adults

Prosocial lying is a common phenomenon in daily life,however,there are still some pending problems,for instance,when you encounter a person who is sad and depressed,do you tend to tell prosocial lies to comfort him/her?Although several studies investigated emotion's role in the process of lying,and studies found empathy influences prososial behavior,little research focused on how empathy,especially the sadness empathy affects prosocial lying.Few researchers examined the developmental difference of prosocial lying,and the role of lying consequences on prosocial lying.Because there are significant differences in empathy and prosocial lying between adolescents and adults,the paper explored the effect of sadness empathy on prosocial lying in adolescents and adults from the aspect of development,and how the lying consequences affect prosocial lying in those sad empathic individuals.Based on the several theories about emotion's role in deception,and plenty of empirical studies on prosocial behaviors affected by sadness empathy,several research hypotheses were proposed.Then three studies were completed,each of which included two experiments,they explored the prosocial lying behaviors in empathic adolescents and adults from different lying backgrounds.The purpose of the first study was to investigate whether individuals tell more prosocial lies in the sadness empathy than in the neutral emotion.The aim of Experiment 1 was to examine how sadness empathy influences prosocial lying in adolescents and adults when they face the choices between selfish honesty and prosocial lying.In the experimental process,the experimenter primed the sadness empathy and neutral emotion in participants of differet groups by using the empathy priming paradigm of story reading,and asked them to finish the Empathy Concern Scale,play the deception game,and completed the interpersonal reactivity index.The results found that participants told more prosocial lies in the condition of reading empathy priming event essay than reading neutral event essay,and the prosocial lying frequency was more in the male than in the female.Although there was no significant difference of prosocial lying frequency between adolescents and adults,the reaction time of prosocial lying in adolescents was longer than in adults.The experimental procedure in the Experiment 2 was similar with the procedure in Experiment 1,except that participants faced the choices between the selfish lying and prosocial lying in the game.The results of Experiment 2 were similar with the experiment 1,with the exception of the gender main effect on prosocial lying frequencyThe Experiment 3 and Experiment 4 in the second study examined the effects of altruistic degree,age and gender on prosocial lying of individuals in sad empathy under the background of selfish honesty and selfish lying respectively.Both of the Experiment 3 and Experiment 4 found the main effect of altruistic degree on prosocial lying frequency,when lying did not affect self-gain,but increased the benefit of others significantly,individuals told more prosocial lies.There was no significant difference in the prosocial lying frequency between adolescents and adults,but the reaction time of prosocial lying in adolescents was significantly longer than that in adults.However,the results of Experiment 3 also found that the dimension of fantasy in trait empathy moderated the effect of altruistic degree on prosocial lying frequency significantly;altruistic degree and gender had a significant interaction on prosocial lying frequency,and the two independent variables also had a significant interaction on prosocial lying reaction time.Furthermore,the results of Experiment 4 found the main effect of altruistic degree on prosocial lying reaction time was significant,and the dimensions of perspective taking and personal distress in trait empathy moderated the main effect of age on prosocial lying reaction time significantlyThe Experiment 5 and Experiment 6 in the third study explored the effects of altruistic cost,age and gender on prosocial lying of individuals in sad empathy under the background of selfish honesty and selfish lying respectively.Both of the two experiment found that altruistic cost of lying has a significant main effect on prosocial lying frequency.Compared with the condition of altruism without self-loss,in the condition of altruism with self-loss,individuals lost more self-gains,and told less prosocial lies.However,the results of Experiment 5 found that the three independent variables had a significant interaction on prosocial lying reaction time.The results of Experiment 6 also showed the significant interaction of the three independent variables on prosocial lying reaction time,but the interaction performance was different from that of Experiment 5.In addition,Experiment 6 also found that adults told more prosocial lies than adolescents did.The main results of the present study show that prosocial lying behavior of adolescents and adults may change with the change of situations.When empathizing with another,adolescents and adults tell more prosocial lies to the person to show their kindness and concern,especially when lying does not affect self-gain,but can significantly benefit the person,the prosocial lying behavior of individuals increase evidently,and the trait empathy plays a moderating role in the prosocial lying of individuals;however,when lying loses self-gain,the prosocial lying behavior decreases.In addition,from the perspective of development,when lying does not affect liar's own benefits,there is no significant difference in the prosocial lying frequency between adolescents and adults,but the prosocial lying reaction time in adolescents is significantly longer than that in adults.When lying is at the cost of losing self-gain,the prosocial lying frequency is different between adolescents and adults according to their choice background,but there is no significant difference in the prosocial lying reaction time between them.This shows that adolescents in empathy have the same values as adults in their moral judgment of prosocial lying,that is,only when lying does not affect their self-benefits,will they make prosocial lying behaviors that are more beneficial to others.